My ex husband beat, raped & tried to kill me in terrifying 55hr ordeal… he even brainwashed our kids into his evil plan

FIGHTING for every last breath as her ex-husband pressed the pillow on her face, Alisa Mathewson was convinced she wasn’t gong to make it out alive.

But the shocking moment was just the start of a nightmare ordeal for Alisa that would last a shocking 55 hours and end with her attempted murder.

CBS NewsAlisa Mathewson was subjected to a horrendous 55 hours of abuse and violence[/caption]

Her estranged husband, Trevor Summers, kidnapped, raped and tried to kill her

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s OfficeTrevor was given one of the harshest sentences after pulling a surprise move in court[/caption]

Trevor Summers had sneaked into her home in Florida and attacked her as she slept in the early hours of May 11, 2017.

Describing the horrific moment in an exclusive chat with The Sun, Alisa, 45, says: “I definitely thought I was going to die. He’s here to kill me. This is how so many other women have died.

“They were in abusive relationships, and they tried to get out, but they were murdered. When I lost consciousness, I was in my head and thought, please don’t let me die.

“I just was concerned for my kids.”

Over the next two and half days, Trevor, 46, sexually assaulted her multiple times, tied her up, abducted her and tried to kill her over and over again.

He even write a murder-suicide note to their five children – as he prepared to kill them both.

But a report from eagle-eyed store staff meant police captured him in the nick of time.

Alisa married Trevor in 2001 and says the early years were happy – adding that she grew more in love with Trevor with each of their five children.

It wasn’t until 2016 that he began to exhibit some troubling behaviour.

“Looking back now, I can see that they were there, but I never understood domestic violence and didn’t realise it has all these other aspects other than physical”, she says.

“There was financial abuse, the controlling, the manipulation, using the kids to get what he wanted. So many ways he treated me was abusive but I didn’t see any of it.”

CBS NewsAlisa says she had not noticed all the abusive things Trevor would do to her[/caption]

CBS NewsTrevor kept her prisoner in her home[/caption]

Eventually, Alisa says she became a prisoner in her own home and wasn’t allowed to interact with any other man apart from Trevor. He didn’t even want her sitting next to any other man at church.

Over time, she gathered the strength and courage to leave, determined to start life all over again.

She explains: “When I left, it was with absolutely nothing. As with many victims, I was beaten down by my self-esteem so much, and I was manipulated into believing I could never make it without him.

“I ended up having to go into a shelter, and that was very difficult. I just had the clothes on my back – no place to live and no car. I had nothing but still had small children to provide for. “

In January 2017, Trevor promised Alisa, who had been spending thousands on divorce lawyer fees, that he would grant her a divorce if she came to his house to see him.

He also claimed he would give her child support and a $25,000 cheque.

While Alisa had reservations about going to his home, she knew she had to seize the opportunity to release her financial burden, which included looking after their kids.

“Looking back, it wasn’t smart to go there”, she admits. “But I thought I was doing the right thing at the time. I went there, and he held me at knifepoint for about six hours.

“He held me against my will and wanted to just keep talking to me. There was no physical harm even though he threatened me with the knife.”

When Alisa called the police about the incident, they had difficulty believing her story as there were no signs of physical injuries.

She says: “At first, I thought he’s gone too far. They’re going to believe me. Now he’s going into physical threats. When they did not believe me, it squashed my confidence even more.

“At that point, I started looking backwards at all the red flags that I had missed. I started becoming afraid of him. He had always been a threat to me. I just didn’t realise it.”

Manipulative monster

CBSArden was manipulated by her father to turn on her mother[/caption]

After that incident, Trevor went on a mission to turn their children against Alisa.

She explains: “He would tell them I had all these problems and issues. He said I was a liar and told them even the police and the courts knew I was a liar.

“He would say, ‘Your mum is just sick and I can help her. I’m protecting you from your mum and, if you help me, then we can get her better.’

“He made it out that I was delusional, and I was making these things up.”

Alisa’s oldest child, Arden, who was particularly close to Trevor, believed everything he told her. He even got her on board in vandalising Alisa’s home.

“I came home from work, and my front door was wide open”, Alisa recalls. “When I went into my house. My house was trashed, and trash was thrown everywhere. They poured Kool-aid all over my bed and wrote all over my walls.”

Words like “traitor” were scribbled on a terrified Alisa’s walls. Her kids were the only ones with a spare key to her property.

“I was very scared that I had to get my locks changed”, she says.

But that was not the only time Trevor roped Arden – who was just 14 at time – into his hellish antics and the worst was yet to come.

Terrifying ordeal

fox13news.comAuthorities took pictures of Alisa’s room after the shocking attack[/caption]

48 HoursTrevor recorded videos confirming he was at the house[/caption]

On that fateful day in 2017, Trevor convinced Arden that he wanted to make peace with Alisa. He got Arden to call her mother to say she and two of her siblings wanted to stay over.

Once inside the house, Trevor asked Arden to secretly leave a window open so he could sneak in without raising suspicion.

Trevor left their youngest child, Cooper, who was just three, alone in his house and travelled with Landen, 12. He entered the house at midnight and waited three hours before executing his evil plan.

Alison recalls: “He put droplets of water on my face, which startled me awake. It was really dark, and I could tell there was someone in my room. I was screaming and throwing things at him.

“He then said, ‘Calm down, it’s just me’. And he grabbed my ankles and pulled me off the bed with all the bedding with it. The little kids woke up, and they were screaming, ‘Daddy, don’t kill Mummy’ as he was dragging me through the house.

“He instructed them to stay in my room. They could hear me being thrown around the living room and they even said they thought my bones were being broken because they could hear me hitting the walls.

“That went on for two hours. Whenever he’d pin me down and it went silent, I’d hear the kids screaming in the room, calling for me, and I would call back and tell them it’s okay.

“They were afraid if there’s no noise, maybe Mum’s dead.”

Trevor then told Arden, who had no driving experience, to take the younger children back home in his car to his house. Although the idea terrified Arden, she complied.

With the kids out of the picture and armed with a razor, Trevor had full reign to unleash terror on Alisa. He started by tying her up and putting socks in her mouth so she couldn’t scream.

“That went on for a couple of hours”, she says. “And he untied me and raped me. Then he hogtied me for a second time and made videos on my phone.”

Alisa adds: “He wrapped a scarf around my face, tied my wrists, tied my ankles. He used a nylon rope around my body and he used Christmas lights and tied it to the bed.

In the chilling videos, Trevor says: “I am here with Alisa at her house. She’s virtually unharmed. She’s got a couple of bruises today, but — from the — tying her up.”

Trevor told her he had millions of dollars in an offshore bank account and had chartered a boat so he could “disappear”. He informed her that he had come to say goodbye.

Alisa was then untied and raped yet again.

After the videos, Trevor left. But just when Alisa thought her nightmare was over, he returned 30 minutes later.

“When he came back, that’s when he suffocated me and I lost consciousness. I now have anoxia, which happens as a result of a lack of oxygen to the brain, so sometimes I lose my train of thought.”

After the suffocation stopped, Alisa pleaded with him not to kill her. She managed to convince him she’d do anything he wanted. Trevor told her she would have to go with him on his boat. Knowing what he could do, Alisa agreed “to stay alive”.

Trevor packed a suitcase for her, tied her hands behind her back, and wedged her into her own car. At this point, she had lost all feeling in her arms and legs as a result of being suffocated.

Evil plan

FacebookTrevor turned into a monster after she left[/caption]

WTVTTrevor tied Alisa with these Christmas lights during her frightening ordeal[/caption]

Throughout the initial ordeal, Trevor drugged Alisa with cold medication.

When he stopped at a pharmacy to buy more, she knew the moment she had desperately waited for had come – finally a chance to escape.

Alisa explains: “I thought I may not get another opportunity. I was held in my house on that first day, and nobody knew.

“I started to get the feeling in my arms back so when he went inside, I used my hands behind my back to undo the seatbelt. Then I opened the door and was able to get out of the car.

“Because I was suffocated, my legs were still really shaky, so I stumbled around in the parking lot.”

When Trevor saw that she was trying to escape, he immediately ran out of the car park to violently shove her back into the vehicle.

But unbeknownst to him, an employee at the pharmacy taking a cigarette break had witnessed what happened and alerted the police.

Cops obtained the car’s registration number from the employee and launched a statewide search for Alisa and Trevor.

As they speedily drove off, Alisa says Trevor was enraged that she had tried to escape.

Driving through side roads so he wouldn’t be detected, he went through a dirt road and got rid of Alisa’s mobile phone. He eventually threw away his own phone too, and then turned to Alisa to punish her for trying to run.

She says: “That’s where he slit my wrist. So my hands were still tied behind my back and he slit my wrist. So I couldn’t even see how bad it was.

“I just used my shirt to put pressure on it because I could feel the blood just coming out of my wrist down my hands. He drove down a dark, secluded area and parked the car to go to sleep.

“There was no place for me to run. My hands were tied behind my back, and I was bleeding. We stayed there all night and the next day, he untied me and raped me two more times in the car.”

On March 13, Trevor drove them to a resort where they often went as a family. He turned on the radio, frantically trying to determine whether cops were looking for Alisa.

She says: “He was convinced that nobody was looking for me. He convinced himself that nobody at the pharmacy had reported it and that no one was looking. That’s when he felt safe leaving the wooded area to go to McDonald’s. That was Monday morning.

“He went out into more populated areas and into the McDonald’s drive-thru. He told me if I alerted anyone there, he would slit my throat.

“After that, he went into a gas station to get a newspaper. He came back, looking to see if there was anything about me. He told me no one was looking for me.”

Trevor then wrote letters to his children, confessing what he had done to their mother that partly read: “We should have never gone down the road of divorce that tore our family apart … So, we have ended it for your sake … and will be watching you from heaven.”

Alisa says: “He told me I could not read the letter and that it was just for the kids. I found out later that it was a murder-suicide letter. He was planning on murdering me and killing himself.”

Trevor said he was looking for a safe house to help him escape the country. He then drove into another resort area, where he tried to execute his evil murder plan further.

“He pulled behind a dumpster near one of the restaurants there, went into the backseat and began strangling me with a rope”, Alisa says.

Alisa did not doubt that his intention was to kill her. He suddenly stopped, hurried back into the driver’s seat and sped away.

That’s when Alisa noticed the black pickup truck behind them. They were being followed and Trevor knew he had been spotted.

In a state of panic, he pulled into a private residence. His next move still haunts Alisa today.

“He turned around and was looking at me and he started slitting his throat”, she says. “It was very traumatic to see someone do that. I was screaming at him to stop. It was really horrific.”

But at that moment, Alisa was suddenly distracted by the commotion of cops who had swooped all around them with guns drawn.

lawandcrime.comPolice found them in a residential area just when Trevor was harming himself[/caption]

She explains: “The police swarmed around the vehicle in full tactical gear and bulletproof vests. And I got pulled out of the car. I was in shock. It was very overwhelming. I told the officer I couldn’t believe I was alive and found.

“As we came down the road, the police had barricaded it. There were helicopters above us. It was so much. As the officer came down with me, they opened the road and all the police were cheering.

“As they treated my wounds and interviewed me to help find evidence, I asked them if my parents knew. They said everyone knew as my disappearance had made the national news.”

Cops then arrested Trevor and took him to the hospital. There, he confessed to the crime and was charged with a string of offences, including attempted murder, kidnapping, sexual battery and child neglect.

Due to legal delays and the pandemic, it took five years for the case to go to trial. When the trial finally began, Alisa was prepared to come face to face once again with the man who had tried to kill her.

Shocking move

Fox 13Trevor shocked everyone in court when he decided to represent himself[/caption]

Law & CrimeAlisa bravely stared him down and answered his questions[/caption]

At the 2022 trial, Trevor pleaded not guilty and claimed that Alisa had agreed to be tied. He also claimed that they had consensual sex.

“It’s just one of those ridiculous things”, Alisa says. “It was like, does he not realise how delusional and crazy he sounds? That’s how narcissists act. In hindsight, they rewrite history in their brain.”

Alisa bravely testified, with Trevor glaring at her. But when it was time for her to be cross-examined by his lawyers, Trevor made a move that no one saw coming – he fired his attorney and decided to defend himself.

This meant that Alisa had to be in close proximity to him to answer his questions. Although many in the court were shocked, Alisa says she saw it coming.

She explains: “I had anticipated it. I told the prosecutor that Trevor was the type of person who thinks so highly of himself that he would want to represent himself.

“He thinks he’s smarter than any lawyer.”

As he questioned her rigorously, Alisa bravely faced him and firmly told him about how he raped her and tried to kill her on multiple occasions. But Alisa was more worried about her daughter Arden, who had to answer her father’s questions.

She says: “It was really hard for my daughter Arden when he cross-examined her. That’s where I was more concerned. She had not seen him since everything happened.”

At the end of the trial, Trevor was found guilty. He was slapped with three life sentences, with an additional 224 years, ensuring he would never leave prison alive. It is one of the toughest sentences.

Giving the sentence, Judge Christopher Sabella told Trevor: “I do believe the timing of your decision was born of pure evil, which is not surprising.

“Given the circumstances of this case, the testimony and evidence that I have heard clearly make you a monster in every stretch of the imagination.”

Alisa recalls: “We had a lot of anxiety before the verdict was read. We were ready for it to be over. You never know with a jury.”

Throughout the trial, Alisa had Jeff Matthewson, her new husband, by her side. She met him shortly before her ordeal, and he stood by her throughout her toughest moments.

After going through counselling, the family have got their lives back on track. Although Arden feels guilty about letting Trevor into the house, she is now at peace knowing her father manipulated her.

Alisa says: “Life’s really good. We travel full-time in an RV and I’m now working on a book that’s being edited. I also have a movie in the works. I do speaking engagements to help others understand the dynamics of domestic violence.

“Anyone dealing with domestic violence should reach out to their local resource centre. Domestic violence isn’t always being beaten up. There are other forms other than physical.”

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